Sept. 11…The craziness of Taksim Square

Well, if we ever return to Istanbul, we will, definitely, reserve a whole day or perhaps even two, to spend in the Archaeology Museum as, I'm sure, we only saw a small portion of the incredibly expansive contents on display in the three buildings .

As we came out of Gulhane park, we found ourselves on a narrow street filled with enticing looking shops and decided to do some window shopping. We passed by a tourist office and went in to inquire about the Bosphorus dinner cruise tickets. We chatted with the owners, a brother and sister who were very knowledgeable,for quite a while and ended up buying our tickets from them and would take the cruise when we returned from Cappadocia. We commented that the city seemed to be really crowded and they told us that there was a huge holiday happening during our stay and that there would be mobs of people in town. Eid al-Adha or "Festival of the Sacrifice", or the “Sacrifice Feast” is the second of two Muslim holidays celebrated worldwide each year, and considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, as an act of submission to God’s command, before God then intervened sending his angel Gabriel to inform him that his sacrifice had already been accepted . Apparently, there are animals being slaughtered all over the city that are, then, divided into three parts. The family retains one third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends, and neighbors; and the remaining third is given to the poor and needy. So, the bad news was that we would be encountering huge crowds everywhere and the good news, according to our new friends, the tourist agents, was the reduction of the metro fares. Rather than pay each time we got on the metro, they suggested that we buy a metro pass as, for the next four days of the holiday, the fares would be cut in half…down to a whopping 25 cents.

So, we bought our metro passes, hopped on the train and got off to have dinner in Taksim Square. We found a cafeteria style eatery that had a lot of interesting local food that you could choose from but unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as it looked and was pretty pricey. Afterwards, we inched our way down the crowded street.

When we were in Istanbul five years earlier, we had stayed at an Airbnb a few blocks from Taksim Square and now, five years later, we found the scene there to be just as crazy as it was before. Istiklal Street, the 1.5 mile street between Taksim Square and the Galata Tower, and one of the most famous avenues of the city and a huge tourist attraction, is where all the action is. It’s a mob scene there, 24/7, as the crowds pass by street singers and dancers, galleries, cafes, ice cream hawkers doing crazy things when preparing the ice cream cones, child gypsies playing music, restaurants, chocolatiers, exquisite boutiques with flashy window displays, beggars, bookstores, art galleries, and so much more . This was a whole different kind of sensory overload than what we had experienced at the Archeology Museum and, we thought we better get back to our apartment before our circuits completely crashed and burned.

September 12….Finding the Potatoes

When we were in Istanbul five years earlier, we stayed in a home exchange in Bodrum for a few weeks and then took a bus to Istanbul for a few days. The owners of the home in Bodrum lived in Ankara and had an apartment in Istanbul and their vacation home in Bodrum. They met us in Istanbul and were kind enough to show us around the different neighborhoods and then took us out to a very fancy dinner. One of the places that we stopped for a cup of tea was an interesting neighborhood filled with stands selling baked potatoes with mounds of different toppings that you could choose to put on your potato. We didn’t get a chance to try one then, but, I was determined to find the neighborhood so we could experience this Turkish phenomena this time around . So, we googled it and found that the neighborhood we were looking for was Ortakoy, located in the middle of the European bank of the Bosphorus. It was a cosmopolitan area during the Ottoman era and the first decades of the Turkish Republic. At that time there were communities of Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, and today the neighborhood still has many different religious groups residing there and is a popular spot for locals and tourists alike, with its art galleries, nights clubs, cafes, bars, and restaurants. On the jetty of Ortakoy is the Neo-Baroque style Ortakoy Mosque that is highly visible from the passing boats and a landmark of the neighborhood. The European pylon of the Bosphorus Bridge, one of the two bridges that connect the European and Asian banks of Istanbul, is also situated in Ortakoy.

And then….there’s the Kumpir

The humble potato, known in Turkish as Kumpir, has been a staple food in many civilizations for over 2,000 years . However, in Istanbul, and, in particular, the village of Ortakoy, the potato has been taken to a whole different level. Here in this colorful Bosphorus-side village, the kumpir is one of the city’s most beloved street foods for locals and tourists alike. Kumpir stands are found all over the city but in Ortakoy, there are dozens of them, the majority of which are concentrated, side by side, in the immediate vicinity around the famous Ortakoy Mosque on the side street appropriately known as “Kumpir Sokak” (Baked Potato Street).

After wandering through the outdoor bazaar that fills the narrow streets around Ortakoy Mosque, we had the difficult decision of choosing one of the many stands from which to try our first stuffed kumpir. The mounds of toppings were mind boggling and were colorfully displayed in the glass cases. All the stands seemed to have fairly similar toppings and included some very strange things to stuff into one’s potato.. Among the options were hot dog slices, corn, peas vegetable salad, pickles, pickled beets, green and black olives, yogurt and a couscous-like bulgur dish and little hard candies, just to name a view . We chose a stand manned by a very animated young woman and watched as she split the potato down the middle and began mixing in a small amount of butter and cheese and then asked what toppings we wanted. For our first try at the stuffed Kumpir, we were probably pretty conservative, compared to the humongous potatoes that other people were eating. We only picked about three toppings and found our potatoes to be perfectly cooked and moist and, with our toppings piled fairly high, we experienced an interesting combination of tastes and textures.

After having our Kumpir experience, we walked down to the Bosphorus, the internationally significant waterway that forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey. It's the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation and connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. Since we had no set agenda, we thought it would be fun to take the hour long cruise of the Bosphorus. It would be a relaxing way to digest our very filling kumpir, watch the variety of people on the boat and get a narrated tour of what we were passing on both the European and Asian sides of the Bosphorus. After we finished the boat cruise, amazingly enough, we were still a little hungry so decided to have another stuffed potato, this time being a little more daring in our choices of toppings.

Stuffed to the gills, we walked up to the bus stop and waited for about 30 minutes with no sign of the bus we needed to catch to get us home . There was a group of young people who spoke English and advised us to take a different bus that would get us where we were going. So, a few minutes later, we were headed for home….or so we thought. This particular bus took us to a part of our neighborhood that was totally unfamiliar, and even though the landmark glass skyscrapers, that we could see from our balcony at the condo, were off in the distance, we walked in that direction for what seemed like hours, but couldn’t seem to make our way to anything familiar. It was getting dark and then it started to drizzle when we finally found someone who spoke English and was able to give us directions to the condo. By the time we got there, we were exhausted but, at least, we weren’t hungry as that second potato filled us up so, all we had for dinner was popcorn.

We were catching a flight to Neveshir very early in the morning for our tour of Cappadocia and had a taxi coming at 5:30 a.m. to take us to the airport. After a long day, we packed the things we would need for our two-day excursion and went to bed in hopes of getting a little sleep before the alarm went off.